wishful maybe's
by tombombadillo
Summary: why must we be so ugly and please do not think ill of me / why does the one you love become the one who makes you want to cry


**A/N: because when you're in a mood bad enough that you're pretty sure you would have punched a puppy in the face, it calls for angst. (also if there are any spelling mistakes or whatever in this that I haven't managed to spot, I do apologise. This was originally written on my iPod and it's hard to type on that thing.) **

**p.s. going through one of those phases where I'm reasonably sure everything I write is complete and utter crapola, so eh.**

**Dislaimer: Marlowe doesn't need to phone up for job references later U R G H.**

* * *

_why does the one you love_

_become the one who makes you want to cry, oh why?_

He wishes his mother wasn't right. He wishes that he hadn't met Detective Kate Beckett and he could have just stayed Richard Castle the Playboy. He wouldn't be half the man he was now, but at least he wouldn't have the gaping hole in his chest that he does now. It's ironic really, because it feels somewhat similar to being shot in the chest and that's what got him into this in the first place. Does he regret saying it? Yes. No. He regrets saying it when she's lying in a pool of her own blood, dying with her blood on his hands. He should have said it sooner. Oh, he realises that now. But he never had the chance. Of all the times he could have said something, _anything_, he remained stoically silent for fear of what? Pushing her away? Getting his heart broken? Maybe it wouldn't have hurt this much if it hadn't been broken to him in such a crude and cowardly way (who's he kidding, it would hurt just as much). Maybe she'd let him down gently. Maybe he could have used the summer apart to mend his upset ego (though with what happened there he highly doubted it would have worked) and come back in the fall and they could be friends. Just friends. Or maybe she'd start to feel the same. Maybe it wouldn't work. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

The maybes don't help. Not really. He can imagine and pretend and wish upon every single star he counts in the night sky all he likes, but the truth is still there. Kate Beckett doesn't love him. After everything they've been through, she doesn't. He'll, he wouldn't have minded much even if she'd told him the truth from the beginning. He wouldn't feel so devastatingly betrayed. But again, that's more maybes that he shouldn't be wishing for.

He can't remember when he started drinking. Alexis and Martha are on another college tour (oh he's lost count of the number it is now) and the apartment is far to empty and far to quiet for him and his depressing thoughts. But he's half a bottle of whiskey down and it's still not helping. He needs to be surrounded by people. People he doesn't know or care about. Sit and plot stories and think of characters that aren't Nikki Heat or Jameson Rook. Maybe he could think of a new one. Maybe this is a sign from the universe to tell him that Nikki Heat is drawing to a close. To move on. From Kate and Nikki. He could do that for Nikki. Oh, that's the easy part. Kill her, cripple her, send her to the circus. Goodbye, never to return again. Kate is different. Kate has manifested herself in his brain like a parasite. And it's killing him. Everything he does is for her. Everything he _is_, is because of her. It's all for her.

The club helps. It's loud and boisterous and he's shoved from side to side by a throng of dancers that neither notice nor care that he's there. That's good. He likes being unobserved. Too much alcohol later he's feeling really quite lively now. Enough to find himself a group of girls (none of which are at all like Beckett) to charm, and to really not notice the shoving and the elbows to the ribs that he's getting from those around him. It's not until he gets a fist to the nose does he really realise what he's doing. And apparently he's dancing with this guys girlfriend. The guy who is tall and has too many muscles to count and is standing far too close to him to be considered at all comfortable. He backs away, hands raised in surrender apologising profusely, only to back into someone else. And make them drop their drink. Just how many people is he going to piss off tonight? He doesn't want to count and beats a hasty retreat.

Outside it's raining and it's cold and he's really starting to regret this because the churning of his stomach matches the churning in his brain, and his chest feels tight and he can't _breathe_.

He realises he's not that far from the Old Haunt. He could easily go there, collapse on the sofa until morning and work out what he's going to do from there. Though what the people would say if he turned up there completely drunk out of his skull he has no idea. He's probably too pissed to care. Maybe he'll have sobered up a bit by the time he gets there. The sidewalks are empty and he really doesn't want to risk a New York taxi in this state. He'd be throwing up in the back before he'd shut the door. Walking it is.

He counts walking into five lamp posts (that he remembers), nearly getting run over twice and falling off a pavement once. That made his head hurt. And his knee. He's getting old. He's getting old and he's heartbroken and drunk. He never though himself as one for a mid-life crisis, but it sure as he'll sounds like a good idea. He's not bought anything ridiculously absurd since the land on the moon. more land on the moon? They're doing trips into space somewhere. Maybe he could do that. Go up into space and look down on earth and feel small and insignificant. Remember that he's not the centre of the universe. Life doesn't revolve around him (no, it revolves around Kate Beckett instead) and some people have worse problems than him. He's been heartbroken before (not as badly as this) and he'll get over it (probably when he dies).

He doesn't remember the steps down to the Old Haunt being this steep. Or this slippery. Were they even slippery or did he just fall over half way down? Probably the latter? And he makes a right noise while doing so, thudding into the wall at the bottom with a very unsettling crunch of his shoulder. Everything's a blur after that. A barman appears maybe. A barman that looks suspiciously like Esposito, who bundles him into a car. It smells too good to be a taxi. But it doesn't smell nice enough to be a town car. Police car? Maybe. His vision is spinning too much to recognise it. His vision is spinning too much full stop. It's not Beckett's. He'd recognise Beckett's anywhere. He leans his head against the window, letting the cold glass press against his skin. He doesn't remember anything after that.

* * *

_why must we be so ugly and please do not think ill of me_

He's drunk out of his mind. He's unconscious on the break room sofa and he's drunk and she's scared. Scared because whatever is wrong, whatever is bothering the man who is always so optimistic in the face of _everything_… he felt it necessary to go out and get completely hammered to try and forget it. And it scares her because she doesn't know what it is. He won't tell her, but shrugs it off with "everything's fine" and "never better". And as much as she pretends to not know what's eating him from the inside out, there's that part of her that already knows. She's just refusing to listen to it, because if that were true... he would have confronted her about it. He would have said _something _instead of hiding behind snide comments and blonde air hostesses. He wouldn't have left it alone, because Richard Castle doesn't do leaving well alone. He'll stick his nose in whether it's wanted or not. He's been peeling away the many and various layers of the Beckett onion ever side she first questioned him. It was something he couldn't stop. And now he has and it's unsettling.

Ryan leans in through the door, quiet concern in his eyes, asking how he's doing. She shrugs, her eyes distant. He's in no danger of choking on his own vomit, they made sure of that. Foresight of having a bowl next to him, just in case. Really, she doesn't need to be here. She should be at her desk, trying to work out why a postman was violently murdered outside his apartment instead of sat staring at him. If Gates was present she had no doubt she'd be hauled back to her desk with a glare and some form of threat. Actually, if Gates was here she's pretty sure she wouldn't have let Castle within ten metres of the precinct when he was in this state.

She sits up, lets her feet fall to the floor (when had she taken her shoes off) and stands, aiming for the coffee machine. She's already running on not enough sleep, is running herself ragged with work trying to stop worrying about Castle and his complete change in direction. The inside of her lip has been worked raw and the coffee makes it sting, jolting her out of her thoughts. She leans against the counter, the ceramic mug cradled in her hands and against her chest, breathing in the steam. Castle would kill her for drinking coffee this late at night. He'd tut at her and make some joke about being around if she can't sleep. Pushing, but not _pushing_. She almost wishes he would push. Push her so far out over the edge that she can't turn back. She can't seem to do it herself, but he won't do it.

Ryan and Esposito appear at the door. Either they've got a lead or they're calling it a night. Probably the latter. At half three in the morning she's surprised they're even still here. She's lost count of how many times she'd said screw it and slept on the same couch Castle is now on, woken up three hours later to do an eighteen hour day. It wore her out to the point where various people were concerned with her mental state, and it was her father who eventually talked her out of the rut she'd gotten herself into. She was so surprised at his concern that she'd taken a week off and gone on a fishing trip with him. It was boring as hell, but at least they'd managed to bond again. He gave her his watch that week.

She regrets the coffee. She wants to sleep. She needs to sleep. She can feel the pull behind her eyes, the ache in her shoulders and the need to wrap herself up in a duvet and just pretend the world outside her bed doesn't exist for ten hours. But she's got the option of the floor or the other sofa. There's nothing wrong with just lying down. She can easily keep an eye on him. Even though he seems far too out of it to be waking up anytime soon and it's not like she's the only one around. If he wakes up, throws up, whatever, someone is going to notice. She can cat nap for a couple of hours. Dimming the lights, she pulls the door closed slightly, strips off her jacket and folds into something resembling a pillow. A couple of hours. That's all. Arms wrapped around her, she lies down, teeth working against her lip until she tastes blood. She forces her eyes to close. To stop looking at him. Stop worrying. He'll be there when she wakes up. Just a couple of hours.


End file.
